Update For No Reason

Now that I have found I can blog at work again, I thought I'd take advantage and talk some more crap.

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I found my camera. I bet you didn't know (or care) that I lost my camera back at the start of May when I took my brother and his girlfriend to the airport. I never lose stuff, so I was quite perplexed, but I found it in the back pocket of the car seat last week. So this means I will have lots of photos to post again. It is funny that I lost my camera when I was at my biggest weight (when I wouldn't dream of having a photo taken of me) and then I found it when I am feeling better about myself. If I was religious at all I would say something about god giving us what we need, but I'll just put it down to a happy coincidence.

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So everyone wanted to know if The Time Traveller's Wife was a good movie and I can say that I do recommend it. I have read the book, but it was so long ago that I can't quite recall how close it keeps to the story line. I will say that AJ was almost sobbing by the end of the film, so take your tissues! Honestly, I can't take him anywhere...
Over the last week I also saw Julie & Julia and Couples Retreat and I enjoyed both, but I always like the movies I see at the cinema because it is such a fun experience.

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I have my end of the month weigh in happening this weekend and I am not feeling good about it. I just have a feeling that it hasn't happened for me this month and there have been far too many meals out (mostly small portions) and not enough exercise. I also have lunch out today and tomorrow for work and dinner out Saturday night. The good thing is that it doesn't bother me too much. In the past I would have tried to cancel any social events that interfere with the scales, but I feel confident that I will get the end result in the long run and I can have some fun along the way.

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Do you have a favourite pump up song? I have noticed that every time I am at the gym and feeling slightly flat or like I can't be bothered, when I put on Stronger by Kanye West it just lifts me. I cycle twice as fast or I can lift twice as much and I feel amazing. We all know Kanye is a dick, but he makes some good work out music.

A Few Things

Well I just discovered I could blog again from work, so why the hell not?! So here are a few things...

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The exercise challenge is going well, but it has already been harder than I thought it would be. The first day was Sunday and I spent the whole day cleaning the house, doing washing, moving furniture around, grocery shopping and cleaning AJ's car (don't be jealous of my glamorous lifestyle). So by the end of the day I was rooted and couldn't be bothered exercising. At about 8.30pm I dragged my arse off the couch, because there was nothing on telly anyway, and went for a 35 minute walk around the neighbourhood. It was so boring, my neighbourhood is not the most interesting or pretty place to walk around. I am starting to regret that I sold my treadmill last month on ebay...

Then Monday I was busy all day and knew I wouldn't be able to get to the gym, so I got out of bed extra early and went for a walk around Albert Park Lake before work. I can now officially say that I am not a morning person. Getting up early and going to work is one thing, but being active is a whole different kettle of fish. My body is still sore because it wasn't warmed up and it was just too much activity, too early in the morning for this old thing.

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Last night I went to see The Time Traveller's Wife at the movies because I won tickets to a special advanced charity screening. I am a competition fiend and this was the first time I have actually won anything. Unfortunately I proceeded to eat my weight in popcorn and rocky road chocolate and I still feel bloated today. I am not going to the movies again until I can control my eating at them just a little bit. I also saw one of the couples from Beauty & the Geek there and they looked very much a couple! Never in my life have I seen a shorter skirt and higher heels...

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My good friend had her first little bubby last week and I went to visit her at the hospital in Geelong when she was less than 24 hours old. She really was gorgeous, but the real point of posting this photo-- I don't look hideous. It's nice to be able to see a photo from a special event like this and not feel like I want to rip it to shreds.

Exercise Challenge

For a few months after I joined the gym in June this year I was doing great with exercise. I was going to the gym 5-6 times a week and I never ever considered not going, it had become a habit. Unfortunately it didn't last long. Some time away while I travelled for work and a back injury has kept me away from the gym and even though I am feeling heaps better now, I haven't got my gym mojo back.

This has been reflected on the scales and my weight hasn't really been budging much without the exercise. Being a bit slack with exercise has had a knock on effect with my eating as well and I have started to add in a few un-necessary treats. I am taking the bull by the horns and I am committing to exercising every day for the next 7 days. I will finish the month of October 2009 with a bang and hopefully get the scales to budge before my November weigh in.

I decided I need to blog this goal right away, otherwise I will wake up late on Sunday morning and decide to start Monday, then Tuesday and then I'll just push the thought right out of my mind altogether. I don't normally feel the need to exercise every day and I normally hate feeling I must do something, but I thought this might almost be a fun challenge. Almost...

Hello Sunshine

I had to fly up to Brisbane for lunch with a client on Wednesday and coincidentally, AJ had to come to Brisbane the same day for his work. So I decided to hang around in sunny Brisbane for a couple of days after my meeting and have a little break while he was here working.

First thing first, my lunch meeting. I can't tell you how nervous I was about this meeting because I was so scared I was going to get something stuck in my band and I couldn't exactly just leave the table for 20 minutes while I tried to get it out. I was more nervous because my meeting was happening as soon as I got off the plane and I have heard that flying can tighten the band. Everything went ok and I had nothing get stuck in my band. I ordered the salmon (which I always order) and I just ate ridiculously slow. So slow, in fact, that I was only a quarter through my meal when the meeting was finished and it was awkward when my client offered to hang around while I finished my meal!

So with work out of the way I have been having a very decadent few days. I took all your advice from my last post and went shopping! I know a lot of people losing weight give themselves rewards as they lose weight, but I haven't done anything so far. Money has been tight lately and I really couldn't justify splurging just to celebrate a bit of weight loss. I threw caution to the wind this week and gave my credit cards a work out.

It started with a chaffing incident that made me realise that I was going to have to do a bit of shopping because the skirts and dresses I had brought with me to wear were not going to work out with my red raw thighs. It has been so long since I have been shopping that I actually had no idea what size I was, so I had to take 3 different sizes of everything into the change rooms with me. Of course I was a different size in almost everything I tried on, so I am none the wiser...

In the end I bought a couple of cute tops that were on sale for $30 each because I just wasn't willing to spend $90 - $180 each on the other clothes I tried on, even though there was some lovely stuff around with spring racing carnival and party season upon us. To solve my chaffing problem cheaply, I purchased some bike shorts from target for $12. Oh yeah, I am one classy chick. I figured I will probably need them if I want to wear dresses comfortably as summer hits Melbourne over the next few weeks. Let's hope this is the last summer of chaffing!!!

After I had done my shopping yesterday, on a whim, I decided to see if a hair salon in the mall had a walk in appointment available for me to get a cut and colour (after seeing how bad my hair looked in those 3-way mirrors in Myer). My hairdresser also gave me some gorgeous wispy curls as he styled it at the end and I felt a million bucks. Then I found a nail salon to get a spa pedicure, which was the best pedicure I have ever had in my life, I think I am going to become addicted to pedicures this summer. After all that pampering I went back to my hotel room and put on my new top, some new $5 earrings from Diva and some make-up and I was ready to meet AJ for a lovely Turkish feast and bottle of wine on Southbank for dinner.

Now I am going to check out of the hotel, get some lunch and go and see a movie before I head to the airport to meet AJ for our flight home this evening. It has been a lovely couple of days and just what I needed to revitalise after being unwell and super busy at work over the past few weeks. I don't expect to see any damage to the scales because I have been awesome with my eating and walking everywhere, fingers crossed I am right!

What Am I Afraid Of?

I have been on many a diet in my life and one of the most motivating part of losing weight is when your old 'too-tight' clothes start fitting again. I would be on a diet for less than a week before I started trying on my skinny jeans, just to see if they are getting closer to fitting. Most Saturday mornings I would pick out my favourite skinny clothes and debate in front of the full length mirror whether or not I could get away with it yet. I would do this for hours and have a lot of fun doing it because, for me, clothes are very motivating.

So why is it this time I have an aversion to trying on any of my skinny clothes? I have lost 25 kilos and I am still wearing the same clothes I wore at my biggest. I am very lucky that Couch Potato generously sent me her old 22's and 24's as she has shrunk, so I have plenty of clothes, but even I have to admit that they are starting to get too big for me now.

I have lots of gorgeous clothes in size 20 that I am really looking forward to wearing again and I suspect that many of these will fit me now, but for some reason I don't want to wear them. I feel almost scared to take that step into smaller sizes. I don't even want to try them on and I am not quite sure what I am afraid of.

Even as the numbers on scales have dropped, I have been a downer and not celebrated my losses, because I don't want to get ahead of myself. I am not sure if because deep down I feel that this lap band is my last chance at weight loss and I am scared to get excited about losing weight because I am scared I am going to fail again.

Sticky Situation

I have been dreading the first time I would get something stuck in my band while in the presence of other people. I have been really careful up until now with the kind of foods I will eat in company because I am petrified of getting stuck in front of someone else. For instance, I was having drinks at a friends house on Friday night and she kept offering to order pizza or chinese for dinner and I refused because I knew that there would be a good chance of getting that sort of food stuck-- especially when I am drinking and not being quite as careful as normal.

Then yesterday AJ and I went to Daylesford to meet my dad and step mum because they had a holiday house there for the weekend. We spent hours in their outdoor hot tub in the steaming hot water while it was icy cold outside. Then we got dressed up to the nines and went to the Lakehouse for dinner. I have been wanting to go to the Lakehouse for years and it was just as spectacular as I thought it would be, just one little problem, I got my dinner stuck.

Normally, if I am careful, I can eat anything. I started with some bread, then had a delicious entree of scallops, sashimi, kingfish and tempura oysters. It was the main of blue eye fillet and wagyu cheek that got stuck somewhere. I had to excuse myself 4 times in a 20 minute period to try and bring it back up. I couldn't eat my dinner and in the end I ate less then 1/10 of the meal. I could see the whole thing made everyone feel awkward and I felt mortified by creating the disturbance and the fact I wasted a VERY expensive dinner.

I did eventually get whatever was stuck out and I could have cried with relief. I was able to continue on and eat a delicious tasting plate for dessert that included vanilla bean creme brulee, gingerbread ice cream, espresso granita, chocolate fondant, mandarin pannacotta (and more that I can't remember). The petite fours were equally delectable with salty chocolate fudge, chili chocolate nuts, home made marshmallow and caramel popcorn-- all of which I can eat with ease thank god. I love dessert!

I know I should be grateful that this band has helped me lose over 25 kilos and enabled me to spend the afternoon in the hot tub without feeling totally self conscious and slip on a lovely black dress for dinner, all of which would have caused me to panic previously. But I hate the fact that it can cause embarrassing situations and ruin what otherwise would have been a lovely night. Now I have to fly to Brisbane next week for lunch with a client and I am petrified that something like this will happen again.

I definitely think I don't want too much restriction in my band. I am happy to have just enough to stop me from binging all the time, but while I work in a job where I eat with clients regularly, I am going to keep the band loose enough to eat normal food comfortably. I know that means I am going to have to exercise a lot willpower and self-control, but that is my choice for now.

Sweet Tooth

I have never had a huge sweet tooth. My downfall has always been savoury- pizza, burgers, chips, any take away really. I can still eat all these things with my lap band, but I have to eat them so slowly that I don’t get the same enjoyment that I used to get from them. I knew this would be the case before I got the lap band and I was looking forward to it because I value my health much more than a bowl of hot chips!

What has surprised me is just how much my tastes have changed and I have started to crave sweet foods- chocolate, ice cream, biscuits. I could eat them all day and still not feel satisfied, but luckily I haven’t been! The closest I came was one night when I bought a block of marble chocolate and I ate half the block in less than 5 minutes and I only stopped because I was meant to be sharing it with AJ. At a work lunch the other day, I asked (half seriously) if it would be weird if I ordered a dessert instead of a main...

I did know that a lot of lap banders struggle with eating junk food like this after having the surgery because it is easy to eat and slips right through the band. For me, I enjoy the ability to eat mindlessly, and I can only do this with foods like chocolate and popcorn. As everyone says, having the band doesn’t solve the emotional issues, I still want to eat for comfort. This has been one of the biggest challenges I have faced with the band over the past month and it is something I am going to have to keep working on. Right now I am stocking up on chuppa chups, low fat pudding and low fat popcorn and doing my best!

I got chills, they're multiplyin'

I haven't been feeling the best over the last week. My back has been sore for a while now and then on Friday, right before a Very Important Meeting, I was cleaning the conference table at work and put my back out completely. Then I had to sit through the 8 hour meeting and pretend nothing was wrong. Though I might have looked weird when I was constantly asking my colleagues to pass things to me or plug things in for me or when I had to ask someone to pick up my handbag for me at lunch...

I thought that was bad enough, then one of my wisdom teeth got infected on Saturday. This happens quite regularly because I need all 4 of my wisdom teeth taken out, but it is going to be $2000 out of pocket to get this done, and I just don't have that kind of money right now. So this time it got so badly infected that I got sick, chills, fevers, nausea, dizziness and shaking for the past 3 days. I got some antibiotics from an incredibly unhelpful doctor who wanted to give me antidepressants, even though I had no symptoms of depression...

I am just starting to feel slightly better today, but I have taken the day off since I was up all night dripping in sweat. I'll definitely go back to work tomorrow, mostly because I have a midday appointment with my lap band doctor, which is right by work. I am dying to get some more restriction in my band because I am still able to eat far too much, I really can't remember the last time I felt full. These small portions are killing me!!!

Come On!

Woo hoo, someone noticed my weight loss today!

For the first time since I started this whole weight loss thing in April, someone (who doesn't know I have had the lap band) asked me if I had lost weight. Of course my mum and dad have both said I am looking slimmer and you lovely bloggers have given me some awesome compliments too, but you all know I had the lap band and that I am losing weight. So I was blown away when the only guy in my office told me that he thought I had lost weight. Who says guys are un-observant!

I was actually starting to wonder if I was dreaming that I had lost almost 25 kilos because I am still wearing most of the same clothes and no one has commented on my weight loss. I know the next 5-10 kilos I lose will make a real difference now I have lost some of my bulk. I have to keep working hard because my motivation and focus are really slowing down and I am letting a few bad habits creep back in.

I just have to keep my eye on the prize-- getting under 100 kilos by summer.

Footy Grand Final

I may have mentioned one or two times that I am a big Geelong supporter and have been thrilled that they have made the grand final the last three years and I have celebrated and commiserated over the past couple of years. This year both my brothers are in Canada, so I went home to the country to my dad's house to watch the game with my family there. I was actually meant to catch a flight to Cairns that day, but as soon as Geelong beat Collingwood in the finals, I was on the phone to Qantas to change my flights!

I was so nervous during the game that the drinks went straight to my head and I made a bit of a cock of myself. Let's just say there a few extended family members I will be avoiding this Christmas. AJ even got some photos of my dad holding my hair back while I vomited... they were immediately deleted. But who cares, I had fun and Geelong won, so it was an awesome day!

My dad lives 3 hours away and my flight to Cairns was re-scheduled for 9.30 am the next day, so AJ volunteered to drive me to my dad's and back home again that day. He is so lovely and knew how much I wanted watch the game with my family (who are huge Cats fans) and that I would need some drinks to calm my nerves. I think I was still drunk on the flight to Cairns the next morning, but was well and truly hung over by the time I got there and had to move heavy boxes at a conference. It was fair to say I wanted to die and I was treated to a lovely 2 day hang over.

But who cares, because we won!



Me with the Cats flag outside my dad's house


The boys playing footy at half time


AJ and his lucky footy


Celebrating the win


I got so excited after we won that I tried to put on my brothers old footy jumper, um no, didn't fit...


Me and my dad. Dad was putting wood on the bonfire, not just waving wood for no reason.

October Weigh In

I am a day late with my monthly weigh in because I didn't get home from Cairns until last night. I am really happy with the results this month, especially given that I have been away all week.

October Weigh In: 105.5 kilos
Weight Lost In September: 4.1 kilos
Total Weight Lost: 24.2 kilos

It was a tough week. I am (mostly) fine when I am at home and have my routine, but when I travel for work I fall apart and go back to binge eating. I have been in my job for almost 2 years and every trip I have ever gone on for work has been a disaster in terms of controlling my eating. I pack my gym clothes and runners on every trip (which takes up a lot of room) and I could count on one hand the amount of times I have used them.

As soon as I got to Cairns, I knew I wasn't going to be able to be as careful with my eating as I am at home. I could have gone to the supermarket and stocked up on fruit and healthy food to eat, but when I am surrounded by lovely restaurants and my work is paying, well I am going to take advantage! One of my (many) problems is that I just love food and eating out is probably my favourite hobby. The good thing about having the lap band is that I was able to enjoy some really nice food, but I just kept my portions small and I didn't feel deprived.

I made a few rules for myself, I wanted to stick to 2 meals a day (lunch and dinner) with no snacking and I wanted to exercise every day. I packed my gym clothes (as usual) and didn't use them (as usual), but I did get some use out of my bathers. I went swimming every day for between half an hour and 45 minutes, so I am hoping I burnt a few hundred calories doing that.

Sticking to my eating rules was a bit harder... I was at a conference all week and they wheel out cakes, pastries, slices, biscuits and scones at every morning and afternoon tea break. It was so hard to resist, but I knew that I was saving thousands of calories and I could indulge at dinner time with some good food and wine without guilt if I stayed away from the snacks.

On one day I even bought a giant blueberry muffin from a cafe and then half an hour later I threw it in the bin without so much as taking a bite. Later that night while I was watching TV I got up and got some tim tams out of the mini bar, held them, and then put them back. Then at the airport yesterday, I bought not 1, not 2, but 3 chocolate bars, then realised it was a mistake and threw them away. OK, I wasn't always that good, there was the night when after going out for dinner I felt unsatisfied and went back to my room and ordered a cheese platter and a slice of cheesecake...

I have to say that I am pretty happy with how I did on this trip, but I have room to improve on my next one. I have a lot of travel over the next 2 months and if I want to stay on track to meet my goals for the year, then I need to keep improving.